The song came to an end much too soon.
I felt like he'd just shared so much with me.
Which was the beautiful thing about music, wasn't it?
It told you everything about a person.
"W-W-What's y-yours?" he asked as I rested the side of my head on his shoulder.
I'd never been insecure about my music. I had varied tastes from very deep ballads to supremely shallow pop songs. But, somehow, the idea of singing my favorite song felt lacking.
It wasn't a song like his, one that meant so much, that had so much emotion, so much range.
Mine was simply the song my mother always sang to me as a kid to get me to sleep, one I never got sick of, one I clung to since her passing when I was having a bad day. Some nights, when anxiety was high and sleep was elusive, I would simply rest there in the dark, singing the song to my ceiling over and over until I eventually passed out.
"P-P-Please," he added, slipping his arm around my lower back, giving my hip a squeeze.
I took a deep breath, flexing my fingers, then started strumming.
It took me a while before I found my voice, only after reminding myself that while it wasn't maybe one of the greatest songs ever written, it was kind of a classic in its own way.
"Danny's Song" would always mean everything to me. And sharing it with Cam felt more intimate than I could have anticipated. Maybe especially so because it was a song about love while I was sitting next to a man with whom - and there was no use even trying to deny this - I was absolutely in love with.
I guess, in the grand scheme of things, it was maybe a little fast. We'd only talked for a few weeks before we'd ever really even hung out. Then he'd made a move. And I had needed to leave. Cape May and the clubhouse represented ninety-nine percent of the time we'd spent together.
But, I don't know. While I didn't believe in love at first sight, I truly felt an argument could be made for knowing it relatively quickly. I couldn't help but think that if it took you six months to think you loved someone, that maybe you had spent those six months trying to convince yourself that you loved them. Then again, maybe I was just wishy-washy, my system flooded with all those fun, gooey hormones that made the whole world feel dreamy and very, very clear at the same time.
"H-H-How d-did y-y-y-you k-know?" he asked a long time after I finished singing, my fingers just doing their own thing, transitioning through some songs that I found calming.
"About the singing and stuttering thing?" I clarified. "I wasn't sure. I suspected. I'm happy to be right. Did it feel weird?"
"Y-Yeah. B-B-But n-n-not in a b-bad w-w-w-way."
I wondered if, over time, maybe it might help, might put him more at ease, might help him take the pressure off his mind and mouth and vocal cords.
Not that it mattered.
The stuttering didn't bother me at all.
But I wanted it for him. To start to overcome it, to feel more confident speaking around his brothers, their women, the kids, even strangers.
If he did want to work on it, I knew it would be a long, slow thing. He'd been forced into absolute silence for decades for his stutter, had been made to feel stupid for it. The crippling lack of confidence he must have felt around speaking was only going to slow the progress.
But I liked to think that as he practiced it more, he would feel less stressed about it. At least around me. And that he would slow down, release the tension in his jaw, let the words come out at whatever pace they needed to do so with clarity.
I never wanted to let him feel awkward around me. So I always tried to encourage verbal communication over text or writing. I hadn't seen him pick up a notepad in two days. And I purposely left my phone out of reach most of the time.
I couldn't help it.
I loved that he had opened up to me, shared with me. This thing that he only shared very sparingly in the past with very special people in his life.
It felt indescribably good to be lumped in with them.
Cam's special people.
It was a small group.
One I felt incredibly honored to be a part of.
"A-Annie?"
"Yeah?" I asked, voice a little far away, so lost in my own thoughts.
"T-T-T-Thank y-you," he said in a very small, unsure voice, the sound of it wrapping around my heart in a vise grip.
"You don't have to thank me."
He gave me another squeeze.
When he spoke again, there was an interesting edge to his voice, one I couldn't place right away.
"Y-Y-You're g-good w-w-with y-your f-f-f-fingers." There was a slight pause before the hand at my hip moved suddenly, pressing between my thighs. "I-I'm p-pretty g-g-g-good w-w-with m-mine t-too."